Julia Jonson

My teaching style is heart-centered, hatha yoga peppered with spirituality, humor and hands-on adjustments. In addition to my 200-hour certification, I have numerous practice hours with highly experienced teachers such as Nicolai Bachman and Tias Little. However, I am enriched mostly as both a teacher and student by the brilliant Gabriel Halpern and enjoy practicing, assisting and apprenticing with him weekly at the Yoga Circle in Chicago. I specialize in the therapeutic and spiritual application of yoga as it relates to alleviating emotional tension, stress and back pain. I especially enjoy teaching yoga to teens and athletes.

I first practiced yoga and meditation in 1991 and both disciplines have been an integral part of my life since. I have learned through personal experience that we all have the ability to tap into our inner healer and live radically well. My nose is frequently buried in books about yoga, spirituality and sacred sound. I am also an avid student of holistic living and have logged many hours learning about plant-based diets, integrative nutrition, and Ayurveda. I earned a Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate through T. Colin Campbell's Center for Nutrition Studies and eCornell.

I earned degrees in Broadcasting & Film and Sociology from the University of Central Missouri in 1994. After more than a decade as a television newscast producer working in the Kansas City, South Bend, Orlando, and Chicago markets, I became a yoga teacher in 2007 and have been teaching daily ever since. I enjoy blogging and writing articles about holistic living. Among my written works, a children’s book, Just Me & The Trees, A Children’s Guide to Meditation, published in 2009.

In my spare time, I love hanging out with my husband, children, and dog, walking or riding my bike on any trail, dancing, writing, frequenting health food stores and farmers markets, whipping up vegan cuisine and immersing myself in all kinds of music.